


Yes and Yes and Maybe Yes

by hetrez



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Blow Jobs, Consent, Consent Play, Friendship, Happy Ending, Healing Sex, Love Confessions, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Relationship Negotiation, Season/Series 04, post-monster
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-12-07 06:26:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18231143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hetrez/pseuds/hetrez
Summary: When Eliot was in the happy place, after he’d gained control of his body and then lost it again, he’d told himself he would do absolutely anything to make things right. Turns out “absolutely anything” is pretty goddamn spectacular when you’re free, and healthy, and you’ve got the most beautiful man in the world so turned on he’s shaking, because you’re showing him all the ways that he can say, “No,” and you’ll listen to him.Or: consent porn, with feelings.





	Yes and Yes and Maybe Yes

**Author's Note:**

> CONTENT WARNING: This deals directly with the very real signs of PTSD that Quentin seems to be exhibiting in the most recent episodes of The Magicians. I do not believe that the Monster has been sexually abusing Quentin off-screen, but the psychological and physical torture we see on screen is pretty bad. I can see the aftermath of that spiraling wildly out of control for Quentin and Eliot if they ever get their shit together enough to try kissing again (I hope they get their shit together enough to try kissing again). Here is one way they could try to work that out. As a result, this story contains Quentin's and a tiny bit of Eliot's negative self-talk, descriptions of PTSD reactions, and Quentin trying desperately to minimize his very real trauma. The seed of this comes from my personal experience, and I have tried to be respectful, but if anything feels really off to you please don't hesitate to let me know.
> 
> My next story will feature everyone going out for breakfast burritos to get away from Quentin and Eliot having loud, wall-banging sex all over the apartment, and the adventures they get up to while they're out and about.
> 
> This is canon-compliant up to 4.09.

**Eliot, Now**

They’re lying on the round love motel bed in Josh’s room, Josh having nobly relinquished all claim and gone to worship at the foot of Margo’s.

Eliot is fully and immaculately clothed: his waistcoat, silk. The knot in his tie, intricate. His eyeliner, subtle and perfect. He’s even cut and styled his hair for this, although he probably would have anyway, given what he’d _looked_ like when he got his body back.

Above him, Quentin is naked except for a pair of raggedy gray boxer briefs, his hair a mess, his gaze hot and hopeful and wary. Quentin’s skin is lit red on all the spots where the Monster touched him, where Eliot has promised not to touch him. Quentin’s neck, the left side of his chest, the top of his head, the curve of his lower lip. The top of his shoulders where Eliot’s arm used to fit perfectly.

Eliot will find new places where he fits. "Tell me how to make you feel good," he says.

Quentin says, "Touch me,” and Eliot _absolutely fucking will_. He reaches up for an unlit patch of skin at the right side of Quentin’s waist, and when Quentin says, "Stop," he lets his hand hover there, unmoving.

Quentin stares at it. His breath is coming faster. He looks scared, and dazzled. Eliot can wait all night, he can wait another fifty years, but it’s only a minute before Quentin says, "Touch me," again. Eliot reaches for that patch of skin. He touches it.

"Stop," Quentin says. Eliot leaves his hand where it is. He can feel Quentin trembling, just a little. Quentin’s skin is so soft. The sight of him, like always, is staggering. Eliot almost lost his chance to have this again because he was too goddamn stupid, but luckily he has a second chance.

"No," Quentin says, and Eliot removes his hand. Quentin gasps. "The other side," he says, rushed, voice thick. He doesn’t look scared anymore, he looks ready to be wrecked, and Eliot smiles. Quentin told him, days ago when they were planning this, that his smile was nothing like the Monster’s, so now he tries to smile whenever he can.

"You’re so gorgeous," he says.

Quentin gasps again. His hips push a little bit against Eliot's, and he says, "Hands on the bed. Kiss me."

Eliot would have loved, in some other lifetime, to cradle Quentin's face in his palms. But his job tonight is to make this man feel safe and good and loved, so he grabs two fistfuls of the sheet, pops himself up on his elbows, and kisses Quentin as deeply as he knows how.

\---

**Quentin, Then**

Things Quentin had loved before: the way Eliot was so much taller than him; Eliot touching the side of his neck; the scent of Eliot’s body; the way Eliot always looked disheveled after sex, his hair a mess and his eyes wild; Eliot speaking quietly to him; Eliot pushing him against a wall, a door; Eliot saying his name; Eliot touching that place just underneath his jaw that made his whole body light up, as if he were filled with fireworks; Eliot running fingers through his hair; Eliot's hands on him; Eliot's hands.

But when a Monster spends months wearing the man you love like a jacket, touching you in so many of the ways that you used to enjoy being touched, you have to get a little creative in the aftermath. So they did.

\---

**Eliot, Now**

He hasn’t kissed Quentin, in this life, since that night they spent with Margo at Brakebills. For all that they have memories of their other lives in Fillory, these bodies haven’t spent fifty years together, loving and fighting and sleeping next to each other. The taste of Quentin’s mouth shouldn’t be familiar. The feel of Quentin’s upper lip against his tongue shouldn’t feel like coming home. But it does.

“Stop,” Quentin says into the kiss, and Eliot stops.

He’s vulnerable like this, back arched, chin tipped up to bare his throat, his arms immobilized. He would never have thought he’d like something like this, Before. Eliot the creative project, always in control. Eliot the High King, masterful and commanding. Eliot at the mosaic, keeping his emotions on the shortest least in the world, making sure he didn’t ever confuse fucking with love and devotion. But Eliot’s done keeping his feelings on a leash. And if he wants to be in control of something, well— it’s a nice challenge, to hold every inch of himself still when all he wants is to reach out and pull their bodies together. And feeling Quentin relax, knowing how to make Quentin feel good after everything they’ve been through, is the hottest thing that’s ever happened to him.

“How are you?” Quentin asks.

Eliot laughs, his chest brushing against Quentin’s. “I am so good,” he says. “God. What should I do next?”

Quentin shuts his eyes, and puts trembling fingers to the corner of Eliot’s mouth. Eliot licks them. “It shouldn’t just be me,” Quentin says _again_ , dammit, they already had this conversation. “What can I do to make you feel good?”

Eliot bites at the tips of Quentin’s fingers, smiles around them. “Q, honey,” he says. “If you think I don’t feel incredibly fucking good right now, you are not paying attention.” He rolls his hips up, pressing their erections together.

Quentin says, “Jesus, uh, um. Okay.” For a moment, he sounds like that adorable twitchy kid Eliot met at Brakebills, and the sweetness of it pierces Eliot’s chest. “Put your hand on my lower back and hold me there.”

Eliot does, leaning on his other arm until the muscles burn. He adores the dip of Quentin’s lower back. It’s amazing, his favorite. He could touch it forever. But as soon as he presses, a spasm of panic crosses Quentin’s face, and he’s got his hand up and off before Quentin can say, “Stop, I don’t — not that.”

Eliot brings his hand back to the bed. Before he grabs the sheet, he does the spell again, and lights up that spot on Quentin’s back so he can see the glow of it reflected in the mirror across the room. “Not that,” he agrees.

Quentin makes a growling sound and turns his face away. "Fuck, I’m sorry,” he says, “I thought —“

“Q.”

“No!” Quentin says. “This was supposed to be —“

“Q, it is,” Eliot says.

“ _I_ was supposed to be —“

“Baby,” Eliot tries.

Quentin shakes his head. “We don’t have proof of concept for _this_ ,” he says.

Eliot would love to wrap his arms around Quentin’s shoulders, run careful fingers behind Quentin’s ears, place a reassuring hand against his throat. It would be so much easier, using his body to offer comfort instead of being brave. But he takes a deep breath and reminds Quentin: “I love you.”

There’s other things he wants to say, but that’s the important one. Quentin stops hiding his face. He cups his palms over Eliot’s jaw, and looks at him and _looks_ at him.

Eliot says, “And I’m greedy. I want to get my fingerprints on every part of you he didn’t touch. This here?” He reaches up and holds his fingers an inch away from the splotch of red light on Quentin's shoulder. "It belongs to _me_. You showed it to _me_. And I want it."

"But all the no," Quentin says, conveniently forgetting that was the whole damn point of this. "If I'm not also saying yes."

"Tell me again," Eliot says. "Tell me again and see how much I hate it."

Quentin looks at Eliot's hand, hovering in the air near that forbidden patch of skin. "No," he says.

Eliot puts his hand down. He's still propped up on one elbow, still stretched out underneath Quentin like an invitation, and the burn in his shoulder and the look on Quentin's face somehow merge with the heat in his belly, the tightness in his groin, until he's one solid line of delighted, frustrated longing. "Say it again," he says. He's smiling, when did he start smiling?

Quentin looks down at the way Eliot's contorting himself. "That can't be comfortable."

"I like it," Eliot says. "But I'll stop if you tell me to stop."

"Stop," Quentin says.

Eliot falls back onto the bed, and the release of tension in his shoulder feels _so good_. "God," he says. "God, do it again, tell me again."

Quentin leans over him, eyes wild. " _How_ are you so," he says. He's breathing hard. "How can you."

Eliot looks up at him, at Quentin's perfect mouth and his disheveled hair and his beautiful shoulders. "Q," he says, more serious than he's felt in his whole life. "I want it. Whatever's next. You're making me feel so good, and I want it. _Give it to me_."

He can see it, the moment that unlocks everything inside of Quentin, as if he were a safe and all Eliot needed was the right spell. Quentin falls over him, his hair not long enough to make a curtain the way it used to (not yet, not yet) and kisses him deep and wet and perfect. Eliot kisses back and kisses back, and when Quentin says, "Stop," against his mouth it's even better. He stops.

When Eliot was in the happy place, after he’d gained control of his body and then lost it again, he’d told himself he would do absolutely anything to make things right. Turns out “absolutely anything” is pretty goddamn spectacular when you’re free, and healthy, and you’ve got the most beautiful man in the world so turned on he’s shaking, because you’re showing him all the ways that he can say, “No,” and you’ll listen to him.

\---

**Quentin, Then**

The first few days after they got Eliot back, he didn’t talk to anyone. He said he didn’t remember doing any of the things the Monster did, but he clearly remembered _something_. Eliot sequestered himself away with Margo, the two of them only coming out of Margo’s room to eat Josh’s celebratory croissants or shower.

Every moment that Quentin saw him, Eliot had a hand on Margo’s shoulder or was hiding his face in her hair. She’d sit at the kitchen island while Eliot curled over her like a giant, traumatized house cat, and she’d glare at everyone as if daring them to say anything. Nobody said anything, and Margo had fed Eliot bites of croissant when she could convince him to stop hiding his face against the side of her throat, and Quentin had watched Eliot not looking at him and thought, _Okay, then. Now I know._

It was still worth it, every second he’d spent and all the pain of it, even if he’d been lying to himself about that moment in the park and what it meant.

Three days after they’d banished the Monster for good, Margo found Quentin in the kitchen and said, “Okay, he’s ready to talk to you now.”

“Um, what?” Quentin asked.

Margo rolled her eyes. “He’s not moving like the Monster anymore, so we’re pretty sure he won’t scare anybody, and he wants to talk to you. And I hope you’re ready to talk to him because I need some me time.”

The last few days rearranged themselves in Quentin’s head. He said, “I wouldn’t have been —“

“Oh, please,” Margo said. “Try that with someone who doesn’t know you. As in _not Eliot_.”

Quentin nodded. “Okay,” he said. He could understand that. But: “I would have wanted to be there anyway.”

Margo softened. She said, “It would have hurt him, to know he was hurting you. And anyway I had dibs, Coldwater.”

And that, Quentin had no argument for. “Okay,” he said again. “Where is he?”

“My room,” Margo said. “I’ll be in Josh’s; don’t come get me. And Quentin.”

“Yeah?” He turned to look at her.

“If you hurt him, I will fuck you up for days.”

Quentin smiled. There was an ache in his chest that was love and admiration and a little fear, all smushed together. “Margo the Destroyer.”

“Fucking right,” she said.

When Quentin got to Margo’s room, he found Eliot sitting up at the edge of the bed, wearing a gauzy shirt from Fillory and black brocade trousers. Eliot’s feet were bare. He had blue smudges under his eyes, and he was holding himself as if his ribs hurt. He was staring at the door, and when Quentin came in he looked hungry and scared. He was a gift that Quentin would be grateful for, forever. “Q,” Eliot said.

Quentin shut the door and leaned against it. “Hi,” he said. It came out too quiet.

Eliot ran a hand over his face. “I had a whole speech, but I forgot it, but here’s the gist: I lied.”

Quentin’s heart started pounding. “What?”

Eliot said, “Back in Fillory, after we remembered. I lied to you, and I’m sorry."

Quentin shook his head, trying to rattle the sense back into it. "You."

Eliot held a hand up. “Let me, please, just.” He took a deep breath. He still hadn’t looked away. “I would choose you every day until I die,” Eliot said, and then frowned. “Whenever that is. Considering our luck, it might be tomorrow, but until then —“

“But, what about me?” Quentin asked. He was amazed that he could form the words. He felt like the top of his head was about to come off. He felt like he couldn’t breathe. “You said I’m not, you said I wouldn’t.”

Eliot grimaced. “I lied about that too. Look, I know you used to love me. I believe that you did. And I’m in love with you. I don’t know how you feel now, after everything, but if you still —“

“Yes,” Quentin said. “I still — yes.” He wanted to run over to Eliot but he couldn’t move. The only reason he was still standing was that the door was basically holding him up.

Eliot sighed, and slumped, and then fell over on his side on the bed and started giggling. “Okay,” he said. He sounded high. Quentin loved him so much. “Okay, yes, okay.”

“Okay,” Quentin said. God, they were both such a fucking mess.

Eliot put a hand out, still giggling. The giggles were starting to get a little ragged. Quentin walked over, slowly, making sure his legs still worked. He sat down next to Eliot on the bed, and took his hand.

\---

**Eliot, Now**

Quentin says, “Stop,” and Eliot stops. Quentin says, “Touch me there,” and Eliot can’t get his hands there fast enough. The Monster never touched Quentin’s ankles, or the backs of his thighs, or the points of his hipbones, or his left wrist. The Monster didn’t touch the tip of Quentin’s tongue, or his knees, or the soft skin of his upper arms. The Monster never touched Quentin’s dick, which means that once Eliot has permission, he can get his mouth on it and lose himself in the taste of skin, the smell of Quentin, the way it feels to suck him. And somehow it’s even hotter when Quentin says, “Stop,” right in the middle and holds them both completely still, Eliot’s mouth on him, until he is shuddering and breathing hard and his hands are clenching and unclenching on Eliot’s shoulders.

Eliot lets his mind go floaty and doesn’t move, doesn’t rub his tongue under the head of Quentin’s dick like he wants to, doesn’t press a finger behind his balls. There are so many things Eliot could do, and it winds him up tighter to think of them and let them go.

Quentin says, “I could come from this, without you moving. Just like this.” He sounds surprised and giddy. Eliot could come from hearing him say it. Somehow, despite fifty years together and all the ways they’ve had each other, they’ve never done it quite like this.

"Don't move," Quentin says, "Jesus, don't, don't." He sounds drugged. His hands dig into Eliot's shoulders, ten bright sharp points that just heighten every sensation for him. Eliot doesn't move. "Thank you, fuck," Quentin says. "Just."

Eliot holds perfectly still, feeling Quentin’s hips twitching, hearing him make those moaning sounds that mean he’s about to come. Eliot holds still when Quentin says, “Oh my god,” and comes in his mouth, and Eliot swallows and swallows and holds still and holds still, until Quentin stops shuddering and swearing and sags back onto the bed. He's wound up so tight now, if Quentin touched his dick he might explode.

Quentin strokes a thumb along Eliot’s cheekbone. When Eliot looks up, Quentin is looking at him with the softest eyes. “Hey,” Quentin says. “Up, come up here. What do you want?”

Eliot takes his mouth off Quentin’s dick and rubs his nose against Quentin’s groin, breathing in the scent of him. Then he crawls up the bed and lays on his side next to Quentin, just looking at him. The red glowing splotches on Quentin’s face make him even more gorgeous, how is that possible? “Q,” Eliot says. He feels drunk. That’s all the answer he has right now.

Quentin takes a deep breath. He reaches for Eliot’s hand and lifts it, slowly and carefully, to rest against the side of his neck, right over the glow of red.

\---

**Quentin, Then**

Things Quentin loved before, that the Monster never touched: the way Eliot fucked him; the way Eliot’s eyes would go hot as he watched Quentin fucking Arielle; the sound of Eliot’s shaky breath when Quentin touched him; kissing Eliot and kissing him and kissing him; Eliot’s laughter; the sounds Eliot made when he came; their first time making love at the mosaic, how happy Eliot had been; their last time making love at the mosaic, Eliot’s familiar body warm and comfortable and devastating against his, even after all those years; falling asleep next to Eliot; waking up with Eliot’s hair in his face; having the twenty-seventh argument about the same thing, the way they would be yelling in each other’s faces and then suddenly switch to laughter, and then suddenly to tearing each other’s clothes off; that first time with Margo,how beautiful she and Eliot were together, how sweet it was to watch them and see the way they loved each other; that first time with the two of them and Arielle, how ready she was to adore Eliot and how ready he was to adore her in return; Eliot comforting Quentin after Arielle died, after Teddy left, after they failed and failed and failed at the puzzle; Eliot letting Quentin comfort him, when he had a panic attack about becoming a father; the way Eliot hugged him; the very first time Eliot had kissed him, how it felt like he’d been punched in the chest; Eliot; Eliot; Eliot.

"Well," Eliot said when Quentin finished, looking dazed. "We can definitely work with that."

\---

**Eliot, Now**

Eliot stares, wide-eyed, at the place where his hand touches red. “Q,” he says. “But you.”

Quentin swallows. “Not all the time,” he says. “But this time, I’m saying yes. What can I do to make you feel good?”

Eliot strokes his thumb along the soft skin under Quentin’s jaw. He’s always liked this, the way he could feel his partner's breath when he touched them there, and the way he could move their head if he wanted to. He even liked the slight cramping feeling in his arms and shoulders when he was with a small man, folding his tall body up close so they could loom over him. He’d loved touching Quentin’s neck, because Quentin had always gone pliant and blissed out like a cat. Even before they’d fucked that first time, Eliot had loved putting his hand just _there. See_ , he wanted to tell everyone, _see how he lets me? Nobody else knows how to take care of him, but I do._

That desire to control and command whacks up against the careful, careful way he’s been holding himself all evening and it shorts out something in his brain.

“Uh, El?” Quentin asks, fidgeting. His face is going red.

Eliot takes a shaky breath. _Pull yourself together, Waugh._ “Just — your hands. Just touch me.”

“Okay, I can —“ Quentin looks down, and seems to realize for the first time that Eliot is still buttoned up to the throat, although his waistcoat is wrinkled and his poor tie will never recover. “Uh.”

Eliot smiles, and then he laughs, and then they’re both laughing, Eliot with his Brakebills student drag on and Quentin naked and covered in sweat and jizz and the two of them hurt but never broken, never. Quentin rolls on top of him and starts yanking at his tie, still laughing, and Eliot swats at his hands. “Stop it, you’re going to wrinkle the silk.”

“Fuck wrinkling the silk,” Quentin says, giggling, and whaps Eliot’s hands away. “Stay — still.” He gives up on the tie and starts unbuttoning Eliot’s shirt and waistcoat, while Eliot unbuckles his belt and unbuttons his trousers. “I cannot — believe, _stop trying to help_. Why do you wear so many layers?"

Eliot, still laughing, puts his hands above his head on the pillow and decides he is willing to sacrifice his tie to the cause, but only because Quentin, exasperated, is so fucking hilarious. Quentin finally gives up after all of Eliot’s clothes are disarranged but nothing is really open, and sits back on Eliot’s thighs. Eliot waits. 

“Well?” Quentin asks. 

“I want you to understand how important this moment is, Q,” Eliot says. “ _I am letting you ruin my clothes_.” 

Quentin looks down at the tie, the waistcoat, the belt pulled halfway out of its loops. “That is some sacrifice,” he says. He reaches his hand down inside Eliot’s trousers and wraps it around Eliot’s dick. 

“Damn right,” Eliot says, arching into it and reaching up a hand. Quentin nods, and Eliot rests his hand on Quentin’s neck again, his big palm blotting out the red. His whole body feels tight and hot, and he can’t stop smiling. “Come here,” he says, not pulling or pushing, just asking, and Quentin bends his head until Eliot can kiss him. 

\--- 

**Quentin, Then**

They might not have even had to talk about at all, if Eliot hadn’t sat up after his fit of laughter and leaned in, and reached for that place on Quentin’s neck where Quentin loved to be touched. But Eliot did all of that, and the next thing Quentin knew he was across the room, on the other side of Margo’s giant vanity dresser with his back to the wall, feeling like he was going to be sick. 

“Sorry,” Quentin said, pressing his hands to his chest. “I’m sorry, give me like — sorry.” He didn’t look over. Of all the fucking stupid — Quentin was going to get a grip on himself and then he was going to _light something on fire with his mind_. 

Eliot was quiet while Quentin calmed his breathing down, quiet while Quentin’s heart stopped racing. Quentin didn’t look at him, didn’t look at him. He was so angry at himself, he was shaking. 

Quentin said, “I don’t know why, I mean, I know you’re not him. I _know_ that. And he didn’t even, it wasn’t like when Reynard, he didn’t _do_ anything. Would you just say something?” 

There was a pause, and then Eliot said slowly, “The thought occurs to me, that you don’t have a lot of practice telling me no.” 

“What?” Now Quentin did look at him. Eliot was sitting up again, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, face intent. “What does that have to do with — I never wanted to tell you no.” 

Why would he ever, when all Eliot heard was no anyway? If Quentin had ever so much as thought the word himself, he knew Eliot would have been gone in a second, and Quentin would have never gotten him back. 

And now this, _goddammit_. How did you convince someone you really, seriously and forever want to fuck them _when you couldn't fucking stand to have them touch you_? It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair. 

“Do it again,” Quentin said, “Touch my neck again.” 

“Q,” Eliot said in that soft, horrible ‘I know better than you’ way that he had. 

“No,” Quentin said. “If you don’t want to, that’s one thing, but I want you to.” _Big words_ , he thought, _from a man still hiding behind a vanity dresser._

But Eliot just nodded. “All right,” he said. “I believe you.” Quentin thought he might cry. “But this is good, actually. I think," he gave a soft, sad laugh, "I think if I touched you again right now I might have a stroke or something.” 

Quentin frowned at him. 

Eliot looked exhausted, suddenly. “It’s been a little. Intense. Up here,” he waved at his head. “Mostly I just wanted to see you.” 

Quentin found he could come out from behind the dresser. “I wanted to see you too.” 

Eliot said, “And find out if you smell as good as I remember. Which, for the record, you absolutely do.” 

Quentin laughed. “I missed you.” 

“Oh, believe me, I missed me too,” Eliot said. 

Quentin laughed again. The ugly, slimy feeling of self-loathing had faded back to his baseline, and he took a few steps closer to the bed. To Eliot. 

Eliot looked at him and then yawned, huge, so big it might have been fake. Except as soon as he was finished he looked hilariously affronted that his body would do anything so gauche as yawn. 

Quentin took another step toward the bed. “Rest sounds really nice,” he said. He felt like he hadn’t really slept since they’d gotten to Blackspire. 

“Well,” Eliot said, with that airy nonchalance of his that fooled nobody. “If you want to, I suppose I could join.” 

“Oh, you’re going to join?” Quentin asked. 

Eliot knee walked back up the bed and then curled up on his side around one of Margo’s eighteen thousand pillows. “It’s only polite,” he said. Then he fidgeted, looking uncomfortable, and said, “No. To be honest, I’m so tired I feel like I’m going to die, and if I let you leave this room with that look on your face I might die anyway.” 

Quentin took a sharp breath in, feeling like his heart might burst. “I don’t want to leave,” he said. Another step toward the bed, and then another. 

“Good,” Eliot said. He pulled Margo’s obscene silk sheets up over his shoulders and snuggled down, and looked at Quentin from under the tangle of his hair. 

Quentin got into the bed and crawled under the covers, and pulled off his jeans and sweater. He curled up around one of Margo’s eighteen thousand pillows, facing Eliot, and pulled the other side of her obscene silk sheets over his shoulders. He thought that he would stay awake for hours, watching Eliot, but the sound of Eliot’s breathing pulled him quickly into sleep. 

\--- 

**Eliot, Now**

Eliot wants to say his orgasm is incidental, a diversion from the beautiful healing sex they're having, but in reality it’s so intense he thinks this is what a religious experience must feel like, and he wants to do it again as soon as possible. “Holy shit,” he tells the ceiling. 

Quentin drapes himself on top of Eliot and snuggles his face into Eliot’s neck. Eliot can feel Quentin’s self-satisfied smile against his shoulder. 

He pats Quentin’s hip. “Yes, yes, you’re very talented,” he says. 

Quentin huffs a laugh and bites, very lightly, at the skin of Eliot’s neck. 

They lie there for long minutes, Eliot’s sweat making his clothes feel sticky and gross. But the feeling of Quentin’s chest against his is so good, he almost forgets how desperately they both need to shower now. The room around them is dim in twilight, and the bed is still hilarious. Life is perfect. 

All of a sudden, Eliot remembers another part of his speech, the one he mangled so badly that Quentin nearly ran away. “Hey, Q,” he says, poking Quentin in the side. 

“What?” Quentin sounds half asleep and incredibly cranky. Eliot wants to wrap him up and keep him forever. If he can keep from running away again, he thinks, maybe Quentin will let him do just that. 

“You know, if you hadn’t wanted to. With me. I still would have been your friend.” 

Quentin lifts his head and squints at Eliot’s face. He is still lit up red, and Eliot quickly reverses the spell, so they’re left in near darkness. “Yes?” Quentin says. 

Well, that was underwhelming. Eliot rallies. “And if you decide later —“ 

Quentin’s exasperated sigh is both reassuring and slightly insulting. “I’m not going to decide later.” 

“ _If you decide later_ that I’m not what you want, you’ll still have me, okay? You and Margo, you’re my best friends. You're it for me, whatever you want that to look like. Okay?" 

Quentin squirms around and turns on the bedside table lamp. Then he leans down and squeezes Eliot’s face between his palms. “Eliot Goddamn Waugh. Which one of us asked the other to marry him underneath a Fillorian wedding arch, surrounded by wedding presents, while Margo’s underage fratricidal husband napped in the corner?” 

“What?” No, that wasn’t how it had gone. Eliot had revisited that memory a hundred times. Nobody thought, ‘Why don’t we give this a try? The experiment’s worked at least once’ was romantic enough for a proposal — 

Except Quentin, _oh my god_. 

“You,” Eliot says. 

Quentin says, “I dealt with you for fifty years and wanted more of it. I’m not going to change my mind.” 

Although, if you knew Quentin, it actually was pretty fucking romantic. 

“Okay,” Eliot says. “I believe you.” A _marriage proposal_ , Jesus. And Eliot isn't worth the paper he's printed on sometimes, because he hadn't even fucking noticed. 

_Next time_ , he tells himself, feeling like the whole world has been flipped upside down. Or maybe he'll propose first. The future is full of possibilities. 

Quentin scowls at him, turns off the bedside light, and snuggles into him again. It’s way more aggressive this time. 

Eliot grabs Quentin’s hand and laces their fingers together. With his other hand, he finds a spot on Quentin's waist that he knows is safe. He can't see the red anymore but he remembers where it was -- all the places he can't run his fingers over lightly in the dark. That's all right, he will find new places. He's already started, and next time will be even better. Eliot falls asleep in the middle of a fantastic plan. 

\--- 

**Quentin, Then**

Eliot came and found him the next morning, sitting at the kitchen island with Josh and Kady and eating Josh's post-coital cheddar jalapeno cornbread. 

"Q, can we, uh." Eliot didn't seem to notice Kady and Josh until he was almost on top of them, and then he pulled up short like a cartoon character. Quentin thought, possibly for the first time, exactly how odd the last few years (decades) had made all of them. Eliot regained his usual grace almost immediately, but that first moment stuck in Quentin's mind for hours after. 

"Hi," Eliot said to Kady and Josh. 

"Uh, hi," Kady said, dubious. 

Josh said, "Eliot, have some cornbread." 

"No, thank you," Eliot said. "Q, a word?" 

"Uh, yeah, okay," Quentin said. He shoved the last chunk of cornbread in his mouth, gave Kady and Josh a little wave, and followed Eliot up the stairs to Margo's room. 

Behind him, he heard Josh say, "So he _can_ talk, then. Margo was a little vague." 

Kady said, "Whatever, I have other shit to worry about and so do you." 

Quentin loved them, he loved them, he loved them. 

When Quentin got to Margo's room, Eliot was standing in the middle of it, hands clasped behind his back -- classic pose when he was trying not to twitch out of his skin. He waited until Quentin shut the door and then he said, "Q, listen, about yesterday. I have an idea. But you have to tell me if you don't like it." 

_Anything_ , Quentin thought. _Just tell me what I can do_. But he knew he probably shouldn't say it like that to Eliot, not after yesterday, not with the careful way Eliot was holding himself. Not with Quentin's memory of pressing against the wall behind the vanity dresser and trying not to be sick. 

Instead he said, "Okay, I'm listening." 

Eliot lit up, his smile incandescent. "For the record, think you're going to like it." 

And all of a sudden, Quentin thought so, too. Anything that could banish the shadows from Eliot's eyes, anything that could make him look hopeful and a little giddy and more than a little smug, was going to be good -- blow the windows out of the cottage good. Bring that pretty fruit seller into their relationship good. Raise a child and make a family good, maybe, he hoped. Well, whatever it was, he was ready for it, he'd fucking worked for it, and so had Eliot. 

Quentin leaned against the door, crossed his arms, smiled. He waited to hear what Eliot had to say. 

**Author's Note:**

> In this universe, getting rid of the Monster only gets rid of 1 of their 99 problems. Right now I imagine that the Library is still a danger, Irene McAllister has gotten the Brakebills board of directors fired up about finding all of them, and Alice is living in the apartment with them while she and Kady frantically scramble for a cure for the hedges. There are probably only five bedrooms for the eight or sometimes nine people who are crashing there on the regular. Julia and Penny are a thing which is mostly fine with Kady, because she definitely doesn't want to get with the quiet, sad doppelganger of her dead boyfriend -- but it's still painful and weird. Josh and Margo are breaking furniture everywhere, and that gets awkward for everybody else. And sometimes the Baba Yaga comes and hangs out with Alice and they swap stories about living as magical beings far beyond the understanding of mere mortals, which to observers is equal parts cute, creepy and annoying. So it's not what you'd call _comfortable_ , living in the apartment Kady stole from Marina. But at least Quentin and Eliot are figuring it out. One problem at a time, kids.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] Yes and Yes and Maybe Yes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20922209) by [exmanhater](https://archiveofourown.org/users/exmanhater/pseuds/exmanhater)




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